The Jewish World: 'Arabs hijack Durban Conference and subvert it into a platform to isolate, defile and de-legitimize Israel'

U.S., ISRAEL AND JEWISH GROUPS, BOYCOTT UN CONFERENCE ON RACISM MERIDOR: WE WILL NOT PARTICIPATE UNTIL FALSE PROPAGANDA ITEMS ARE REMOVED

WZO Chairman Sallai Meridor set the tone for what will be a major Boycott of the World Conference against Racism, which has convened this week in Durban, South Africa.

Following consultations with the Zionist Executive and Jewish Organizations Meridor issued a strongly-worded statement on August 26th saying that the World-Zionist Organization would not attend the upcoming conference since the draft resolutions for the WCAR are replete with false, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda.

"As long as these resolutions will not be removed from the agenda, there is no place for participation, which would grant legitimacy to the vociferous chorus that sings Palestinian lyrics to tunes from Teheran," Meridor said.

Meridor expressed great appreciation for President Bush's declaration that the United States will not participate in the conference if it will be a platform for attacks upon Israel and Zionism. He added that the United States' just and supportive position must not be weakened by Israeli participation.

Yesterday, the US administration decided to dispatch a low-level delegation to Durban to examine ways of changing the anti-Israeli decisions. Failing to effect changes, the delegation was instructed to remain outside the conference halls. Discussions at the Foreign Office tonight will lead to a decision on whether to dispatch an Israeli delegation following the US action and at what level.

On Monday, Deputy Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Rabbi Michael Melchior told some 40 Jewish organizations that Israel would not attend as long as the malicious anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist hate-language of the draft documents be removed. "The Arabs kidnapped the conference and subverted into a platform to isolate, defile and de-legitimize Israel," he said. Jewish organizations showed support.

The World-Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency was to have sent a sent a strong delegation to both the NGO conference (which began on August 28th and runs till September 1st ) and the governmental conference which will open on September 31st and continue to September 8th. Draft documents of both conferences contain language which places Israel and Zionism in the context of Racism, trivializes the Holocaust by referring to it in the plural and writing it in lower case and debases the meaning of anti-Semitism by referring to Israeli practices against Semites. The language of the NGO drafts is particularly bad accusing Israel of racist practices, of committing acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and practicing new forms of Apartheid.

Commissions at the NGO Conference include Hate Crimes/Genocide/ Ethnic Cleansing, Palestinians and New Forms of Apartheid, Indigenous Peoples.

Israel stands to take a bashing in these and other forums. Though diplomatic efforts are under way to expurgate the offensive language, the language is so pervasive that chances of doing so are close to nil.

Meanwhile Durban exudes anti-Israel hatred. Large-scale anti-Israel demonstrations have already taken place. A massive 25,000 participant demonstration is scheduled to take place on Thursday, (July 30th). Every delegate arriving gets a free "Israel is an Apartheid State" T-shirt, courtesy of the Palestinian Caucus, which puts out hate e-mail newsletters in several languages.